


Something in the Tea

by DawnsEternalLight



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman and Robin (Comics), DCU (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Belladonna - Freeform, Drugged Tea, Drugs, Dysfunctional Family, Gen, Hallucinations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-18
Updated: 2016-07-18
Packaged: 2018-07-24 18:17:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7518301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DawnsEternalLight/pseuds/DawnsEternalLight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Damian drinks hallucinogenic tea he can't escape the visions of what he wishes his family would be like.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something in the Tea

The last thing Damian remembered was Grayson dropping him off at Gotham Academy’s Tea’s from Around the World event. Open to both students and the public it was supposed to be a chance for him to ‘make more friends his age’. Damian agreed on the off chance that he might find a new flavor of tea to enjoy, and because Grayson had promised him a new set of throwing knives.

Instead of finding himself in the cafeteria or an auditorium, Damian found himself tied to a chair in what he was sure was the school’s basement. Along with him were the other children he’d been with, each one tied up around a table set ironically for tea.

“What happened?” one of the girls asked.

This seemed to start a wave of questions pouring across the table:

“Where are we?”

“I want my mommy!”

“Is this some kind of joke?”

Damian wanted to tell them all to shut up. Their overlapping voices were distracting, pulling his attention away from figuring out a way to escape, and trying to remember what had happened to bring them all here.

“This isn’t where we’re supposed to be having the party.”

All of a sudden everything came back to him. It didn’t matter that they’d been knocked out with some kind of gas, or even their location, what mattered was the fact that it had been a tea party or a kind of one, and the only person that cared about tea parties was-

“Children, children, settle down, the party will begin in a moment,” The Mad Hatter strolled into the room, followed by a dozen or so men carrying tea pots. The men moved as a unit, turning over tea cups and filling them with steaming liquid from their pots.

“I heard you were having a party, but the tea your guardian’s picked out was so boring and I just had to liven things up a bit.”

The Hatter danced around the table examining his men’s work, “I’ve got this new tea you see, it’s one I’ve been dying to try out. A mix of belladonna and English Breakfast, perfect for those nasty caffeine fixes and for livening things up for a bit, I will however need a volunteer to tell me if it needs sugar or not.”

“Are you mad?” Damian couldn’t keep quiet any longer, “Belladonna’s a hallucinogen, and incredibly potent. You can’t give it to children.”

“Mad yes, but I assure you, it’s safe, but if you’re so worried,” the Hatter skipped over to one of the girls, Maps, and Damian really wished she’d stayed home for this little adventure, “I’ll just have this young girl try it.”

He scooped up her cup and held it towards her. Damian squirmed, the ropes were too tight for him to get out of, and even if he could he didn’t have a chance of making it to them in time, not with the Hatter’s goons everywhere.

“Stop, I’ll try it.”

“I was hoping you’d say that,” Hatter was by his side in an instant, the next moment Damian felt the cool edge of china pressed against his lips, steam curling up before his eyes, “Drink up, or should I pay your friend another visit?”

He paused a beat before he took a sip, “There,” he said. He knew he wouldn’t get away with just taking the tiny sip, that wasn’t the point, he was stalling for time.

“That’s not the deal, you said you’d try it. That means the whole cup.”

As humiliating as it was for him to let the Hatter give him the tea Damian allowed it, if only for the sake of the other kids. Ideally, he’d be the only one to have to drink the drugged tea.

His head felt cloudy the moment he finished the tea, belladonna was notorious for working almost instantly. He blinked, not sure when the hallucinations would set in, or even if he’d be able to tell the difference when they did.

Somewhere a door crashed open, and yelling began. Damian was only dimly aware of it as everyone else in the room warped into monsters. Horrible faces, laughing faces, screaming, all of it hit his senses at once and Damian squeezed his eyes closed, maybe that would help.

It didn’t. They were still there, still laughing and screaming and changing behind his eyelids, or were his eyes open again? There was a voice now, familiar, saying something- maybe his name? But everything was slipping away and Damian was all too willing to let it slip at this point, anything for some quiet.

The next thing he knew he was waking up in a hospital bed, Grayson leaning over him, worried blue eyes contradicting the smile on his face, “Hey sleepyhead.”

“What happened?”

“You overdosed on belladonna and they had to pump your stomach.”

Damian scowled, “I know that. I want to know what happened after. All I remember are monsters and I know those weren’t real.”

“You hallucinated monsters? Really? Were you fighting them too?”

“No, now get back on topic, Grayson. Were you there?”

Dick eyed him for a moment, before he smiled, “All the kids are fine.”

“I didn’t ask you that.”

“I know,” He leaned on the palm of his hand, “Your friend Mags wanted me to tell you thank you for her. She said you saved her and the others by taking the Mad Hatter’s drugged tea instead of them. That was pretty brave of you.”

Damian frowned, “No it wasn’t. It was a calculated assumption based on facts. I’ve been trained to handle different types of poisons and drugs, they haven’t. It made sense that I’d offer to take it first in order to give you and Batman more time to arrive.”

“Still, I’m proud of you, Little D.”

Damian shrugged, “Can we leave now?”

“Not yet, your doctor wants you here for observation while the effects finish clearing up. He says you'll probably be pretty shaky and may have some light hallucinations that will be easier to deal with here.”

“This sucks.”

“I know but at least you’ve got me.”

Damian’s response died the moment the door to his room opened up and his father walked in. There was no denying that he was surprised, if anything he expected his father to have stayed with the other children to make sure they made it back to safety, but there was also no denying that he was pleased.

“Father,” Damian started, but stopped when Talia stepped in behind Bruce.

Damian wasn't sure he believed his eyes, had his mother really just walked into his hospital room? No, this had to be a hallucination. Her being here wasn't possible for a number of reasons. The first was that she was countries away, the second was that she and Bruce could hardly get along when the world was ending, let alone stand each other for something as mundane as this.

"Bruce is still at the school, he was going to try and come later if you were still here,” Dick answered mistaking Damian’s statement for a question.

That confirmed it, not only was his mother not real, but this version of his father wasn’t either. It should have been obvious. It was too good to be true, having both his parents here and Grayson with him. He almost preferred seeing the monsters from his earlier hallucinations. Those he could handle. This? He wanted so bad for this to be real.

Wanted so bad to really have his family here with him, have them happy and whole. There was a piece of him that always reacted when his parents were together. A spark of hope that erupted that, this time things would be different.

This time Talia would say she was here to stay. Say that she was giving up the criminal life to help raise her son. Say that she loved Father and wanted nothing more than their happiness. And his father would smile and let her back in. A little guarded sure because Bruce had a contingency plan for everything, but he'd be willing to try and that was good enough.

Damian was tempted to let the visions run away with him, his parents looked so happy standing together, being there for him, but he couldn’t. It would only hurt more to try and grasp onto things that would never be.

His eyes flashed back to Dick, “Prove your real.”

Dick blinked, “What?”

“Prove to me that you’re really here, Grayson,” he wanted to curse his own voice as the statement came out with a tremble of fear in it.

“What are you seeing?”

Damian looked back at his parents, now quietly discussing something between them. Talia laughed and Bruce smiled, that small smile he saved for the times he thought no one was looking.

“It's not important, it's not real.”

“Ok, let’s see, what if I told you something outrageous? Something you couldn’t make up on your best day?”

Damian shook his head, “I can think up of a lot of things, Grayson.”

Dick nodded, “Alright then, what about this,” he reached out and took Damian’s hand, “A vision couldn’t hold your hand, could it?”

Dick’s hand was warm, and calloused, and real. An anchor for Damian to reality, “Don’t leave, not until it’s out of my system.”

His brother gave him a small smile, “I promise, I won’t leave your side.”

“Good. I don’t want to risk saying anything incriminating to anyone.”

Dick laughed, “Not that they’d believe you anyway. You are still tripping on belladonna.”

As if Dick’s words were a reminder to his brain, Bruce and Talia moved from their place by the door to stand next to where Dick was seated. They were saying something, and Damian knew if he looked at them, if he gave them any of his attention that the words would be exactly what he wanted to hear. Instead he kept his attention focused on Dick.

“Tell me a story, something interesting that happened while you were with Spyral.”

Dick thought for a moment before a bright grin split his face, “Did I ever tell you about the time Tiger and I ended up in a pit of robo-tigers?”

“No.”

“Great, it all started when Matron sent us to France. Now I know what you’re thinking, how do robo-tigers have anything to do with France, just hear me out on this one,” Dick said.

Damian fell asleep somewhere in between his brother’s daring escape from a monkey clown and the robo-tigers.

When he woke up his hand was cold. Habit made him tug it under the blanket, the lack of resistance made his eyes fly open.

“Grayson?”

There was no response, as he craned his head to look for his brother. His room was empty, not even his visions remained, and while part of him was relieved that he no longer had to ignore the fictitious representation of his family, he couldn’t help but feel a chill at the stark reality that he’d made it all up, from Grayson to his parents. 

What he did next was childish, he knew, but there was no one to judge him and he’d had enough for the day. He’d been forced to attend an event he didn’t want to go to, kidnapped, drugged, and left for hours by himself tortured by visions of the family he could never have.

He was due for a little indulgent self-pity, and so he curled up under the scratchy hospital sheets and pouted, refusing to cry over things that had never happened in the first place, even as he wished things had been different.

He stayed that way until the door to his room creaked open, and a figure tiptoed inside. It wasn’t until they reached his bedside that Damian looked up. Dick’s eyes widened in surprised before smiled, “Your up, how do you feel?”

“You lied to me, Grayson.”

The smile slipped into a frown, “What do you-” he started to ask, then seemed to realize what had happened. In a moment he was seated on the edge of Damian’s bed, a hand brushing his brother’s hair back.

“I’m so sorry. I only meant to step out for a moment to talk with your doctor. You were sleeping so soundly that I was sure I’d be back before you woke up.”

“I thought I made you up, I thought I was-”

Dick leaned down and tugged Damian into a hug, “Dami, I am so sorry. I’m should have realized you were having trouble when you asked me to stay. Can you forgive me?”

“How do I know you’re really here?”

“That’s what I went to talk to the doctor about. Your last blood test came back clean, which means it’s out of your system. We can go home as soon as you’re ready.”

“Then let’s go home, I’m tired of seeing ghosts.”


End file.
